No justice in this system of healthcare rationing

The withholding of two drugs which could help save the sight of thousands is an outrageous betrayal of the founding principles of the NHS.

PUBLISHED: 00:00, Thu, Jun 14, 2007

Treatment was supposed to be available free at the point of need for all those covered by this great national insurance scheme. There are not many medical priorities greater than preserving failing sight.

There are not many people more entitled to consider themselves comprehensively covered than pensioners suffering from macular degeneration – most have been paying into the NHS pot for decades.

Yet thanks to yesterday’s ruling, more than 15,000 a year face going blind.

At the same time the NHS will continue spending a fortune on foreigners who have never paid a penny towards it.

HIV-positive asylum seekers and tuberculosis sufferers from the Third World will get expensive drugs while elderly Britons are plunged into darkness.

Unless, of course, they live in Scotland, where the drugs in question are freely available, thanks to large subsidies from the English taxpayer.

No voluntary insurance policy could attract customers on the basis that those who pay its premiums are not guaranteed its benefits while those who pay nothing may be quids in anyway. But, after the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence decision, this is the NHS “offer” to taxpayers south of the border.

One particular Scot must understand the profound injustice of this. Gordon Brown lost the sight in one eye as a teenager. If his remaining good eye begins to fade he can use his Scottish home address to get the best treatment for free, just like his constituents can.

But in a fortnight Mr Brown will take charge of Britain. We will all be his constituents then. If he doesn’t tackle this disgracefully unfair system of healthcare rationing, then he is destined to go down in history as the premier on whose watch support for the NHS faded away.